Jack, Alias Frost
by ShinyTogeticFTW
Summary: When the Man in the Moon raises Jack Frost from the frozen pond, the winter spirit has no memory of who he was. After watching the movie this year, I was struck by inspiration: What if Jack DID remember? Thus, this story was born. Happy Easter, I hope you like it so far, and forgive me if it takes a while to update; I do plan on continuing this at some point but, well, you know me.
1. Opening

Darkness. That's the last thing I remembered. It was dark, and it was cold, and I was scared. Not for myself, but for my sister. My eyes snapped open. My sister! I looked around frantically and began panicking as I realized I was underwater, my breath escaping as tiny bubbles that immediately froze and sank to the bottom of the pond.

Then I saw the moon. Somehow, the moon was able to calm me down. It was so big and so bright that it seemed to chase the darkness away. Before I knew it, my body was floating towards the surface, which began to crack and break apart so that I could emerge like a chick from an egg. I gasped for breath, the night air drying my skin, hair, and clothes without the stinging accompaniment one would associate with a winter wind. In fact, oddly enough, I no longer felt cold at all.

I don't know how long I stared at the moon, but when I finally blinked and looked around I realized I was floating in the air, gradually drifting down until my feet landed on the ice… which was reforming beneath me as I got closer to it, almost as though in reaction to my presence. But that was a puzzle for another time; I had to find my sister and make sure she was alright. I was certain I'd saved her from falling in, but then I fell in myself, so I don't know what happened after that.

I took a step, my bare feet slipping a little on the ice. I quickly caught myself, then took a few more steps before I stubbed my toe on something. I looked down to see a stick… a long stick with a hooked end. The one I had used to pull my sister out of harm's way.

I went to shove it aside with my foot so I wouldn't trip, but then I did a double-take as the stick sparkled white with a coating of newly formed frost. Curious, I knelt down to pick it up, flinching as it glowed brightly and dropping one end of it reflexively to shield my face. In my peripheral vision, however, I saw a feather-like pattern streak across the frozen surface of the pond, radiating from the end of the stick where it had struck the ice when I let go.

Taking the stick in both hands as I rose to my feet, I couldn't help but giggle. This stick was no ordinary stick, it was a magic staff – one that could create ice! Oh, the fun I'd make with this thing! The tricks I would play….

Tricks….

My sister's panicked voice rose unbidden in my mind: _"Yes! You always play tricks!"_

I had to find her. I had to make sure she was safe. The tricks could wait until later.

I shifted my grip on the staff so I could carry and use it like a walking stick, then set off straight for home. From a distance I could see people milling about here and there as I followed the path out of the woods to the settlement where my family lived, but they all ignored me and I them; the only person on my mind was my sister.

The house was dark as I approached it, so I reached out and tapped the staff's hooked end against the door. It didn't make a knocking sound, though. All it did was form a flowery spiral of frost spreading out from the place I had hit it. I shook my head and went back to holding it like a walking stick before rapping my knuckles against the door… except that didn't making a knocking sound either. Instead, my hand passed straight through an inch of solid wood with no noise created and, as I saw when I leapt back in shock, no damage done, neither to my hand nor the door of my house.

I looked around for some sort of explanation, but it seemed none of the people hanging around outside had even noticed. There was a child running after a dog, both heading in my direction, so I called out to him as he approached, "Excuse me. Can you tell me–?" Before I could finish asking my question, the child ran into me… and passed straight through, just like my hand through the door.

I gasped in shock, my hand over my chest. He just ran through me, like I wasn't even there, like I was nothing but a spirit! But that couldn't be, I was solid! I had to be, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to pick up the staff….

The staff! That was what made me this way, it had to be! I threw it away from me and spun in place to call after the boy, but he just kept chasing that dog as if he couldn't hear me. I ran to my door and tried to knock again, but it was no different than the last time. So I guess it wasn't the staff. I really was dead. What now?

For some reason I couldn't explain, I turned and walked over to where the staff had landed after I threw it. It had gone back to looking like an ordinary stick, and lying there on the ground it even seemed sort of forlorn. I kind of felt weird without it – naked, almost – but when I picked it up again it regained its frosty coating and the strange feeling I had went away. I suppose this staff and I were meant to be together, then.

This time I walked over to the window of my house instead of the door and placed my hand flat against the glass. To my surprise, my hand didn't go through, but my touch made it frost over. I took a step forward to look inside, but when I pressed my nose to the glass it went through. I stumbled forward and tried to catch myself, instinctively taking another step… and walking straight through the wall.

How I got inside didn't matter, though; the fact was I had finally gotten into my house! I rushed to my sister's bedside where she laid, asleep. I reached out to stroke her cheek but stopped before I reached it and let my hand fall. I wouldn't be able to make contact with her anyway, and the last thing I wanted was to see my hand pass through my own dear sister's face. Instead I bent over her and as my eyes filled up with tears I whispered in her ear, "I love you."

Just then, she let out a quiet moan and stirred. As I pulled back from her, a single stray tear fell and landed on the tip of her nose. She sniffed and sneezed (did she actually feel that?) and blinked awake (had she heard me?) with a mumbled whine of, "Jack…" before sitting up and wiping the sleep out of her eyes, her hand dragging down the bridge of her nose where my tear had landed. She looked down at it and saw it sparkle white briefly before melting away. "…Frost?"

I laughed then; it seemed fitting. "That's right, Sis. You can call me Jack Frost from now on." She looked up at me then, her eyes going wide as saucers. She could see me! She could actually see me! I felt so joyous at that moment I could almost fly, and I had to tamp down the urge to do a midair backflip in celebration.

My excitement faded quickly, however, when I saw her lip starting to wobble. "But… how did you…? You fell in! I thought you were dead!" she sobbed. "That was a horrible, horrible trick!"

"No, listen, listen. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. It wasn't a trick."

"Yes it was," she insisted, though she seemed unsure now. "Because you're here…"

"Not completely. I walked past a dozen people on my way here and none of them could see or hear me, and a boy walked right through me when I tried to get his attention."

"Why?"

"I'm just a spirit now." There. I'd said it. "I don't know why you can see me, but you're the only one."

"That's easy, Jack," she replied matter-of-factly, "I can see you because I believe in you." At that I couldn't help but smile, yet before I could open my mouth to respond she added, "But that was mean, nipping at my nose while I was asleep!"

A crooked grin spread across my face then as I told her, "That'll be a good story to pass on to your kids someday: Jack Frost nipping at your nose."


	2. Interlude

As time went by, I watched my little sister grow up from a girl into a woman. I constantly visited her, and she always said hello to me no matter how many strange looks she got from everyone else. When she had children of her own, she would lull them to sleep every night with a song she made up about their uncle Jack Frost nipping at their noses.

She would always tell them I was the one who made it snow in the winter, and they believed her… for a while. I would play with them, having snowball fights and building forts and snowmen, but as they got older they started to ignore me. My sister asked them about it, and they said, "We're too old to believe in that stuff anymore, Mom. Imaginary friends are for little kids." No matter how she tried to convince them I was real, they never saw me again after that.

They eventually had children themselves, and even though they didn't believe in me anymore, they still told their kids about me, singing my sister's song at night and encouraging them to play with me until they were grown up too.

This went on for generation after generation, and eventually I got used to the constant cycle of ups and downs, the fluctuations I could feel deep down in my soul; a crushing sense of loss every time a child got too old for their imaginary friend, a delightful burst of elation when one reached the age of understanding at which they could rationalize the significance of what believing in something means.

* * *

For a while I thought I would never leave my hometown of Burgess, but after my sister died the grief was too much. I left the place I'd always known in order to travel the world seeking solace.

The children who believed in me at the time begged me not to go, but I promised them I'd be back again someday. True to my word, I returned every year, but only for the colder months: from late fall to early spring. I didn't stay the whole time through, however; I had learned that I could command the wind, so I rode the gusts and breezes high into the sky in order to travel long distances quickly.

And so, with the wind at my back and my staff in hand, I roamed the earth for countless years, playing tricks wherever I went, hoping that by keeping a smile on my face I would be keeping the sadness at bay as well. Gradually the pain dulled until it only hurt when I stopped having fun; I held on tight to the good times and pushed the bad ones to the back of my mind.

* * *

**A/N: NorthernMage, thank you as always for your review, and since you didn't want me to get rid of the angst? Here's a double dose of it just for you.  
Thanks also to Natalia Faye, dragonfox123, LunarCatNinja, Puella Pulchra, and Xiaberri for your reviews, and rest assured there is more to come! Sorry this one is so incredibly short, but it is just an interlude.  
**


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